I’m sure you’ve heard a variation of the oft quoted statistics about new year’s resolutions, something like: “Less than 10% follow through.” Those statistics form a sort of collective pessimism that excuses us from success. As it turns out they’re also BS.
According to a study by Dr. John Norcross from the University of Scranton, after two weeks 71% of people are still at and after six months nearly half, 46%, of have stuck to their guns. The study goes on to say that people who resolve to change at the New Year are 10 times more likely to succeed than folks that start at another time. So what does that tell us? Now is the time: Adventure is calling, start today. If we dig a little deeper it also tells us that now is the most critical time. The first two weeks is critical to success, half of total failures happen by the second week of January.
Almost half of Americans make a new resolution. Not surprisingly 77% of those resolutions are weight control or self improvement related. Seven out of ten specifically named resolutions have to do with health improvement or being more adventurous.
“12% of new gym memberships come in January,” according to Darren Beattie at Quora.com, “The second week of January is almost always the busiest of the year” representing about a 33% increase in volume. “80% of the New Year’s Resolutions crowd drops off by the second week of February [6 weeks]."
So we know that it’s going to take two months to turn that resolution into a habit and that the most critical period it between weeks 2 and 6.
“Timothy Pychyl, a professor of psychology at Carleton University in Canada, says that resolutions are a form of "cultural procrastination," an effort to reinvent oneself. People make resolutions as a way of motivating themselves, he says. Pychyl argues that people aren't ready to change their habits, particularly bad habits, and that accounts for the high failure rate. Another reason, says Dr. Avya Sharma of the Canadian Obesity Network, is that people set unrealistic goals and expectations in their resolutions,” according to a Psychology Today article. I believe it’s not as simple as all that. I think deep within the collective unconscious we recognize the yearend as a “return” and the New Year as a “call to adventure.” Think of that 2 week hump in your resolution to be your “refusing the call.”
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#Adventure is calling, answer. Get your #newyears #resolution on track with VIKINGfit. #new year new #health @ www.wanderlost.today
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